Crime & Justice

Cops: Pregnant woman hit in possibly retaliatory shooting

A pregnant woman was wounded in North Philadelphia Wednesday night during a shooting that police say may have been retaliation for a shooting earlier this month in the same neighborhood.

Cops responded to Bucknell Street near Montgomery Avenue shortly after 8:30 p.m. and found a 26-year-old woman who is seven months pregnant bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to her upper right thigh, Chief Inspector Scott Small said. Police rushed her to Temple University Hospital, where she was listed in guarded condition. Investigators said she appears to have been an innocent bystander.

At the scene, police followed a blood trail around the corner onto 24th Street, Small said, and found a second victim, a 19-year-old man, shot once in the left arm. That man was also taken to Temple by police, where he was listed in stable condition and being held as a prisoner. Police said they believe he's the man they've been looking for in connection with a shooting on 24th Street near Jefferson earlier this month.

Small said a police surveillance camera at Bucknell and Berks streets, on the north end of the block where Wednesday night's shooting took place, may have captured the incident. Cops were pulling footage from the camera late Wednesday as they investigated the shooting.

One witness was taken to speak with detectives in the Central Division, Small said.